Russia, Cambodia to replicate India’s tiger story

India's success in tiger relocation in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh tiger reserves now goes global. Russia and Cambodia have sought help of Indian wildlife scientists for similar tiger relocation programmes in their respective countries. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Aug 14, 2012, 01:36:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's success in tiger relocation in Sariska (Rajasthan) and Panna (Madhya Pradesh) tiger reserves now goes global.

Russia and Cambodia have sought help of Indian wildlife scientists for similar tiger relocation programmes in their respective countries.

Relocated tigers in Panna and Sariska now have off-springs, an indication that the tiger reserves here have a viable tiger population in coming years after losing them due to poaching and man-animal conflict.

"The two reserves show that our relocation programme has been a success," said PR Sinha, director of Wildlife Institute of India, whose scientists were instrumental in the success of the first projects of its type in the world.

Russia having 400 tigers and Cambodia about 40 tigers and both the countries want to kick start breeding of tigers in forests to have a viable population.

Russia and Cambodia having 400 and 40 tigers respectively, want to kick start breeding of tigers in forests to have a viable population.

Russia has selected Sikhote-Alin biosphere reserve under its Siberian Tiger Project and Cambodia has selected Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary as possible zones for tiger relocation under the World Bank supported Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), which aims to double the present world tiger population (of about 3,000) by 2022.

For that, GTI needs to develop viable tiger habitats in 13 tiger nations and India's experience in scientifically managing tiger population since 1970s has come handy.

"Our team of scientists will be visiting Russia in mid-September to share its experience on tiger relocation," said a senior environment ministry official. "India and Russia have already signed an agreement on cooperation in the area of wildlife."

WII scientists had already conducted one round of consultations with forest officials of Cambodia for a relocation and tiger monitoring programme. "Our experts have provided them scientific inputs on how the relocation should be done," a senior government official said.

Officials of both the countries had visited some of the tiger reserves in India to witness India's scientifically run tiger conservation programme. The officials did not rule out that China – having only 50 tigers in wild - may be the next seeking India's help.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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